Southampton leave out big duo from pre-season squad

The 'Saints' are heading out to China for a pre-season tour, where they will take on the likes of Schalke and Jiangsu Suning in warm-up friendlies, and they have named a 30-man squad of players to travel. 

The main party headed out to the Far East on Saturday, and new signing Mohamed Elyonoussi will link up with the rest of them soon. 

However, Carrillo and Boufal have both been excluded, which leads one to believe that they are not part of Mark Hughes' plans for next season, and are likely to be moved on. Carrillo is Southampton's record signing, and only joined Southampton in January, while Boufal was bought in 2016 under Claude Puel.

"I'm quite excited and the majority of the guys understand exactly what I want, what my standards are and what I am asking them to do," said Saints boss Hughes.

"We are looking forward to it, there's some good quality games within the two weeks

"The point is to get the majority of the guys back and we've got a few new faces as well, so that's always good to be together as a group for a certain length of time. It helps new guys to integrate.

"So we've got the benefit of a good three, four months work, going into the new season."